News Archive

The upcoming feature filme John Carter of Mars has more cast announcemnts. According to the Hollywood Reporter Samantha Morton, Dominic West, and Polly Walker have been added to the film based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs books. Morton will play Sola, the daughter of Tars Tarkas, who is being played by Willem Dafoe. Dominic West will play Sab Than, prince of the Zodangans. Polly Walker will play Sarkoja, a Thark. Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins, who played Gambit and Kayla Silverfox in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, have been cast in the leads. Kitsch will play the title character and Collins will play Dejah Thoris, Princess of Mars. There's absolutely no word on how this works with the fact that since the books were first published we now know that Mars is a barren wasteland of a planet and not the lush green place of action and adventure. Then again that fact didn't stop Tom Cruise from half-assed remake of the H.G. Well's story

Casper the Friendly Ghost is celebrating his 60th anniversary this year. Everyone's favority friendly ghost first appeared in comics way back in 1949 and has since appeared in cartoons, animated features and two live action movies (the first staring Christia Ricci and Bill Pullman.) Dark Horse comics is already set to reprint the vintage comics staring Casper and Arden Media will be publishing a new regular Casper series written by Todd Dezago and art by Pedro Delgado starting in October. According to reports the new comic series will be set in New York in an area populated by ghosts.

Classic Media plans to start an animated series titled "Casper's Scare School." This is reportedly based on the 2006 computer animated movie aired on Cartoon Network. The over all plot is about Casper being friendly with a boy named Jimmy causing Kibosh: The King of the Underworld to enroll the friendly ghost into a Scare School headed by the two-headed headmaster Alder and Dash. In the school Casper befriends Ra, a mummy with unraveling issues and Mantha, a zombie girl who keeps falling apart. When Casper discovers the two-headed headmaster's plot to use a petrification potion to turn Kibosh into stone and take over the Underworld and Deedstown, he and his new friends must stop him.

The actual rights to Casper are now once again controlled by Eric Ellenbogen and John Engelman, who bought the company back from the acquirers when it got into difficulties earlier this year.

Warner Bros. and filmmaker Bryan Singer are unsheathing "Excalibur," aiming to remake the 1981 John Boorman movie about King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable. The project is still in the early stages, with Warner tying up the remake rights, which it shares with Boorman. The matter of Singer's involvement is still in talks. Legendary Pictures may come aboard the project. The 1981 movie starred Nigel Terry as Arthur and Cherie Lunghi as Guenevere and featured early performances from Liam Neeson, Patrick Stewart and Gabriel Byrne, as well as a co-starring performance by Helen Mirren. In gritty and dramatic fashion, the movie told the well-known myth of the young man who draws the sword Excalibur from a stone, is mentored by Merlin, establishes Camelot, loses his wife, Guenevere, to his best friend, Lancelot, and engages in the quest for the Holy Grail. Singer's "Excalibur" will be a more epic fantasy version compared with the earthy Clive Owen-starring "King Arthur" released by Disney/Touchstone in 2004.

Despite how badly the last X-Files movie did in the box office there's talk about another movie in the works. The news come via Croatian website DNEVNIK.hr while Gillian Anderson was attending the Sarajevo Film Festival. Anderson spoke on her role as Agent Scully, "Of course I would play in the new film sequel for THE X-FILES." I would most certainly hope so, it'd be beyond wrong for anyone else to play the part. The site indirectly quoted her saying it was go, 'The new extension is in preparation and should be filmed in 2012.' So far it remains an internet rumor bassed on an off handed remark, but stranger things have happenned.

Geoff Johns and Bill Birch have been hired to write the new script for the Shazam! movie, according to the Hollywood trades. Johns is one of three comic writers tapped by Warner Bros. to work on DC movies. If fans remember the last script - one of many, by John August, was round files by the studio. According to reports, the new approach is expected to tie more closely to the comic source material.

After the wonderful fan response to the preview at San Diego Comic-Con and a t he weeks of multiple-company biddings, Lionsgate has acquired domestic rights to the theatrical production Kick-Ass, according to Variety and Hollywood Reporter. Money to produce the film, based on the comic by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr., was raised by director Matthew Vaughn after studio financing was unavailable due to content issues. Lionsgate plans a “wide” release in 2010, according to the reports.

NBC has acquired the rights to produce a live action drama based on Midnight, Mass., the Vertigo series by John Rozum, according to Hollywood Reporter. The series is being written by Gretchen Berg and Aaron Herberts, according to the report. There were two Vertigo miniseries based on the Midnight, Mass. property, both in the first half of this decade, which followed the story of a husband and wife team of paranormal investigators.